Top Cryptographers to Meet at UCSB for Post-Quantum Cryptography Semi-Finals for NIST

(Decrypt) Observers say that recent and unexpectedly fast advances in quantum computing are causing the time horizon to dramatically shrink when bitcoin will be hackable. The most aggressive estimate says that bitcoin will be hackable by 2027 “We moved the state of the art more in the last two years than it has progressed in the last 15 or 20,” says Stewart Allen, Chief Operating Officer at IonQ.
Top cryptographers will meet in Santa Barbara at the University of California for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Post Quantum Cryptography semi finals. The finalists of the NIST competition will be announced in the months after the conference, though it might take years before the winner is annointed. Cryptographers say the standards that result represent blockchain’s best hope for resisting the rapidly encroaching power of quantum computers.